Choral Fantasies Most histories of nineteenth-century music portray “the people” merely as an audience, a passive spectator to the music performed aroundit.Yet,inthisreappraisalofchoralsingingandpublicculture, MinorshowshowaburgeoningGermanbourgeoisiesangofitsown collective aspirations, mediated through the voice of celebrity com- posers. As both performer and idealized community, the chorus embodiedthepossibilitiesandlimitationsofaparticipatory,national identity. Starting with the many public festivals at which the chorus was a featured participant, Minor’s account of the music written for theseoccasionsbreaksnewgroundnotonlybytakingseriouslythese often-neglectedworks,butalsobyshowinghowthecontestedidealsof Germannationhoodsuffusedthemusicitself.Insituatingbothmusic andfestiveculturewithinthemilieuofGermanbourgeoisliberals,this studyuncoversnewconnectionsbetweenmusicandpoliticsduringa centurythatsoughttoredefinebothspheres. ryan minor isAssociateProfessorofMusicattheStateUniversity of New York at Stony Brook. His research focuses primarily on the musical and political culture of nineteenth- and early twentieth- century Germany, with special emphasis on opera, choral music, and music’s participation in the public sphere. He has published widely on Wagner, and serves as an associate editor of the Opera Quarterly. Choral Fantasies Music, Festivity, and Nationhood in Nineteenth-Century Germany ryan minor CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge,NewYork,Melbourne,Madrid,CapeTown, Singapore,SãoPaulo,Delhi,MexicoCity CambridgeUniversityPress TheEdinburghBuilding,CambridgeCB28RU,UK PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyCambridgeUniversityPress,NewYork www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9780521760713 ©RyanMinor2012 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2012 PrintedintheUnitedKingdomattheUniversityPress,Cambridge AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary LibraryofCongressCataloguinginPublicationdata Minor,Ryan,1974– Choralfantasies:music,festivity,andnationhoodinnineteenth-centuryGermany/RyanMinor. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferences. ISBN978-0-521-76071-3 1. Music–Politicalaspects–Germany–History–19thcentury. I. Title. ML3917.G3M56 2012 782.50943009034–dc23 2011031558 ISBN978-0-521-76071-3Hardback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceor accuracyofURLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredto inthispublication,anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuch websitesis,orwillremain,accurateorappropriate. Contents Listofillustrations [pagevi] Acknowledgements [vii] Introduction [1] 1 ChoralfantasiesfromBeethoventotheVormärz [8] 2 MemoryandmultiplicityinFelixMendelssohn’s “Gutenberg”works [33] 3 ProphetandpopulaceinLiszt’s“Beethoven”cantatas [68] 4 SongsandstatesinBrahms’sTriumphliedandWagner’s Kaisermarsch [110] 5 OccasionsandnationsinBrahms’sFest-und Gedenksprüche [163] Notestothetext [199] Bibliography [247] Index [273] v Illustrations Figure1.1 MoritzvonSchwind,EineSymphonie.Reproducedwith permissionfromtheBildarchivPreußischer Kulturbesitz [page29] Figure2.1 Coverpage,KarlPreusker,GutenbergundFranklin. ReproducedwithpermissionfromtheBayerische StaatsbibliothekMünchen [54] Figure4.1 Comparisonof“HeildirimSiegerkranz”and“HeilundPreis” melodies [122] vi Acknowledgements Thisbook,likemanyofitsilk,hashadalonggestation.Thelistofacknow- ledgementsthatfollowsiscorrespondinglylong,andhorriblyimpersonal,but attheveryleastIliketothinkthatthisgestureofcommemoration,aswellas thecommunalspiritithonors,isinkeepingwiththechaptersthatfollow. Berthold Hoeckner – equal parts Doktorvater and all-around mensch – helpedthisprojectincountlesswaysandoncountlessoccasions.Alsoatthe University of Chicago, Philip Bohlman, Thomas Christensen, and Philip Gossettnurturedmyworkthroughitsearlierstages.So,too,didanumber ofstudents:DanielBarolsky,GurminderBhogal,CeliaCain,DonaldChae, Yonatan Malin, Yossi Maurey, Catherine Saucier, and Marta Tonegutti. Twomembersofthatcohortarenowclosefriends–CeliaCainandDonald Chae–andIalsothanktheminthatcapacity,aswellasfortheircontribu- tionstomanyepicureangatherings.IowesimilarthankstoElizaGarrison, WayneHeisler,CaseyMcKittrick,andMarkVail. AtSUNYStonyBrook,Ihavehadthegoodfortunetobesurroundedby a number of distinguished colleagues: Joe Auner, Andy Eisenberg, Sally Fuller, Bonnie Gordon, Judy Lochhead, and Ben Steege. In particular, Mauro Calcagno has proven himself both an indefatigable colleague and a good friend. Dan Weymouth came to my technological rescue at the last minute, and Ilari Kaila and Phil Salathé – who presumably did not enter a doctoralprogramincompositionsothattheycouldspendasummerentering mymusicalexamplesintoFinale–werealsoenormouslyhelpful. I thank the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, which funded a sabbatical year to work on this book (even if most of those funds wereimmediatelyfunneledbackintotheCambridgeeconomyonceIdiscov- eredFormaggioKitchen);Radcliffealsoprovidedawonderfulcommunityof scholars and what has to be the most ideal library situation on the planet. Closertohome,IthanktheFAHSSresearchinitiativeatStonyBrook,which funded multiple summer research trips. The DAAD, the American Brahms Society, and the Franke Institute for the Humanities at the UniversityofChicagoprovidedcrucialsupportaswell.Perhapsmostofall,I thank the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, which not only sponsored this vii viii Acknowledgements project – generously – in its infancy, but has repeatedly funded subsequent researchtripstoGermany.I’mhonoredtoweartheHumboldttie. This project is also indebted to a number of libraries and archives: the StaatsbibliothekzuBerlin(Hans-GüntherKlein);theStaatsarchivBremen; the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn; the Staatsarchiv der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg (Dagmar Bickelmann); the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg (Jürgen Neubacher); the Brahms-Institut der Musikhochschule Lübeck (Wolfgang Sandberger and Stefan Weymar); the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München; the Bodleian Library at Oxford University; the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv Weimar (Evelyn Liepsch); and the ÖsterreichischeNationalbibliothekWien. Portions of Chapter Three appeared in Franz Liszt and his World, ed. Christopher Gibbs and Dana Gooley (Princeton University Press, 2005), and a regrettably early version of Chapter Five was published in 19th- Century Music 29/3 (2006); I thank Princeton University Press and the University of California Press for permission to reprint this material. I am especiallygratefulforallthehelpthatIreneZedlacherandDonGilleroffered withtheLisztmaterial,bothinitsinitialformandinitsreincarnationforthis book.AtCambridgeUniversityPress,IthankRebeccaTaylor,aswellasher patience;IamalsogratefulforalltheworkandsupportthatVickiCooperhas put into the book. I thank Esther Scheps, who slogged through this entire manuscriptwithoutcomplaint,andmanagedtofindadistressingnumberof thekindsofmistakesIdidn’tthinkImade. Several scholars deserve special recognition: Lydia Goehr, who helped me focusthebook’sopening;ChristianKaden,whosesupportoftheprojecthas been particularly gratifying; Gundula Kreuzer, my operatic partner-in-crime who also happens to know the literature surrounding this book exceedingly well;AlexRehding,whohasgivenmeinvaluablefeedbackforyears;andJeffrey Sposato,whosegenerousoffertoreadthroughtheMendelssohnchaptersaved mefromseveralembarrassinggaffes.Iwould alsoliketothankanumberof other scholars who have left their mark on various parts of this book: Celia Applegate, Daniel Beller-McKenna, Marcia Citron, Richard Cohn, John Deathridge, Christopher Gibbs, Dana Gooley, Arthur Groos, Virginia Hancock,JamesHepokoski,BrianHyer,David J.Levin,ChristopherMorris, MichaelP.Steinberg,DavidTrippett,andLauraTunbridge. AriSammartinoisnolongerapresenceinmylife,butsheisverymuchone oneverypageofthisbook.IthankherforsharingGermanhistorywithme. Idedicatethebooktomyparents,LynandGeneMinor,andamhumbled bytheirunendingsupplyoflove,support,enthusiasm,andgrace. Introduction Early in the nineteenth century, Hans Georg Nägeli made a promise. Writing in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, the Swiss pedagogue prophesied a coming “age of music,” one in whichart becomes the “com- mon possession of the people,” and “humanity itself is taken up in the elementofmusic.”Hisvisionwasassimpleasitwasgrandiose:heforesaw anageofchoralsinging.1 Nägeli’s eager prognostication was to meet some stiff competition. The nineteenthcenturymayindeedhavebeenan“ageofmusic,”butthatlaurel hastypicallybeenplacedontheheadsofvirtuososoloists,theinstrumental sublime,andthegalvanizingpowerofoperaticrapture.Atbest,“humanity itself”figuresintothismusicalworldastheaudience,whereitspendsagood portion of the century sitting down – a passive spectator to the music performed around it. But Nägeli’s promise amounted to more than high hopes. For the nineteenth century was also an age of music precisely accordingtohisterms:anageinwhich“thepeople”participatedinmaking music, an age in which the burgeoning middle class saw its collective aspirations embodied and envoiced in the music it itself sang. Choral Fantasies is concerned with this other side of the “age of music.” And while its focus is Germany, this book’s story is one of many that remain to be told about a nineteenth century whose aims, achievements, and practitionersreachedwellbeyondtheGermaniccontoursofNägeli’simagi- nation–andwellbeyondthemyopicgenericfrontiersthathavefrequently limitedmusicology’sengagementwithmusic’spublicspheres. Nägeli’sinvocationofmusicasa“commonpossessionofthepeople”was afamiliarthemeinthenineteenthcentury,andassuchitiseasytofileaway under any number of hyperbolic rhetorics;most obviously, theownership tropewouldsoonplayastarringroleattheintersectionofGermannation- alism and nineteenth-century art religion.2 But the kind of possession Nägeli had in mind is neither a cabinet of scores in the communal imagi- nary – in fact, it is not an object at all – nor a shrine for hushed, supine worshipatthealtarofmusicaltranscendence.Rather,Nägeli’spossessionis participationitself,thepromisethatmusicwouldbelongtothepeopleonly throughtheirownperformanceofit.Andifchoralperformanceisindeed 1